Job creator

About

A job creator is a person or business which employs more people at the end of a given span of time than it did at the beginning.

Being a first-derivative phenomenon, job-creation only has meaning with respect to some span of time; any entity that is a job creator during one span of time might be a job-destroyer (downsizing or going out of business) during another.

A stable business of any size that is neither expanding nor shrinking is neither a "job-creator" nor a "job-destroyer"; it is a "job maintainer" or "employer".

Conflation

The term "job creator" is often used rhetorically as a synonym for "rich people" or even "large companies/employers", based on the theory that jobs are created by "trickling down" from the top.

However:

1. There is a difference between job creators -- i.e. companies that create new jobs, adding to employment -- and job providers or maintainers (aka "employers"), i.e. companies that employ people and generally re-fill positions that become vacant.
2. Most large companies are not job creators, but job maintainers. Most jobs are created by small companies starting up and going through an initial growth phase.
3. During recessions such as the current one, large companies actually tend to be job destroyers, as they lay off workers and close plants.
4. Rich people are not automatically job creators. They are not automatically job creators if they own a company. They are only job creators if they are investing in a start-up that is successful and doesn't end up laying off everyone they hired.
5. A rich person who invests in a successful start-up is still not as much a "job creator" as whoever is actually doing the work of making that company successful.
6. A rich person who does not invest in sustainable businesses is arguably a job-destroyer, since they are at best taking the money out of circulation (so it can't be used to help a growing business) and at worst contributing to businesses that damage the economy and have a net negative effect on employment over the long run.

Conclusions

This conflation is misleading and should be challenged wherever it is found. It is essentially a form of bait-and-switch in that we are given arguments for supporting business growth, but what we are actually being asked to support is legislation to help maintain the plutonomy.

Links

Related

• 2012/07/15 [L..T] Deconstructing Conservative Myths About Socialism, Capitalism, and Who The "Job Creators" Are "Conservatives have taken to a new spin on truth, by refashioning definitions of words and terms in order to provoke new connotations. Socialism is now defined as a government take over, Capitalism is now defined as patriotic, and the wealthy are now defined as job creators. But simply redefining these words will not change their true meaning, it is only myth making."